Europe

We headed to Mont St. Michel on my whim- “it’s not that far” so I told my friend- or it didn’t look like it on the map (yeah, I ended up in Nepal under the same guise- “it’s only next door” (three full travel days later). Won’t I ever learn? Adventuring is sporadic, spontaneous and serendipitous. If we always traveled according to set plans and itineraries, it would not be so much fun! So here’s today’s Flash Back Friday Tale: Finding Mont St. Michel.

This is a tale BC (before children) of how I escaped an attempted abduction during my travels in Istanbul: My feet took me back to the Grand Bazaar, where I had gotten lost in the labyrinthine streets and stalls that dated back to the 1400’s, with my friends earlier, but at night a market is quite a different place. Shadows stretched across the darkened shops, cafes crowded with men spilled out into the aisles, the smoke of the hookah pipes clouded the air…

The first time I ever crossed continental Europe, I rodepassenger on a Honda 500cc. I had hitched a ride from North London and five days later, I ended up on the Greek island of Kerkerya (Corfu). Still a teenager, I was an au pair in North Finchley when the autumn breeze began to bring a…